Becoming Eve

The traditional religions in the West today are sadly lacking in an active, positive role for women. Men run the show, men write the scriptures, men speak to God, God is a man, etc. Mormonism is no exception.

I can see some small efforts made by the early Mormon church to include women. These efforts died out near the turn of the century. Priesthood blessings preformed by women were discouraged, the Relief Society was lumped in with the Primary and Youth organizations under the control of the Patriarchal Priesthood (rather than being autonomous), and so on. While the rest of the world was granting women more rights, the Mormons were restricting. I'll leave polygamy for another post or two :-)

As a Mormon woman who is interested in the stranger doctrines of the early church, I wish there had been more revealed about the role of women in the whole scheme of things. In all, it is a confusing mass of data that no one has bothered to reconcile. The main cause of this is the tendency of historians to sweep under the rug many important events and trends because they are deemed "crazy", "heretical", or "dangerous" by the modern church leaders. Publishing the results of research on this topic often results in dis-fellowship or excommunication. The scholars brave enough to study Adam-God (or even interested in it) are mostly men, thus don't have a burning desire to find out what exactly is going to happen to all the woman. A feeling that they are going to be all right and happy is good enough. Now, all you men out there who are exclaiming about how much you do care, please, contribute to this blog, and we can all benefit.